From an objective standpoint, that ABC television devoted virtually all of its “World News Tonight” August 8 to the death by lung cancer of its former anchorman Peter Jennings was rather astonishing. The war in Iraq continues, starvation stalks Niger, the price of oil is soaring, the Japanese government has collapsed—and ABC felt that it should give over its nightly review of international affairs to a man who, when all is said and done, was best known for reading the news. Rival news programs, on NBC and CBS, also dedicated an inordinate amount of time to Jennings’ passing. One can...

TEL AVIV – A staunch denier of the Holocaust who long served as the deputy of late PLO leader Yasser Arafat served on the committee that invented the military doctrine used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya. As WND first reported, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine. Several of the doctrine's main founders sit on multiple boards with Soros. The doctrine and its founders, as WND reported, have been deeply tied...

“Fidel Castro could have been Cuba’s Elvis!” (Dan Rather.) “Fidel Castro is one hell of a guy! “You people would like him!” (Ted Turner to a capacity crowd at Harvard Law School during a speech in 1997.) “Fidel Castro is old-fashioned, courtly—even paternal, a thoroughly fascinating figure!” (Andrea Mitchell.) “Castro has brought very high literacy and great health-care to his country. His personal magnetism is powerful, his presence is commanding.” (Barbara Walters.) “Viva Fidel! Viva Che!” (Jesse Jackson while arm in arm with Fidel Castro himself in 1984.) "Fidel Castro is very shy and sensitive, I frankly like him and...

April 1989 archive Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace Agree Reporters First, Americans Second In a future war involving U.S. soldiers what would a TV reporter do if he learned the enemy troops with which he was traveling were about to launch a surprise attack on an American unit? That's just the question Harvard University professor Charles Ogletree Jr, as moderator of PBS' Ethics in America series, posed to ABC anchor Peter Jennings and 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace. Both agreed getting ambush footage for the evening news would come before warning the U.S. troops. For the March 7 installment on...

"Some thoughts on those angry voters. Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming . . . The voters had a temper tantrum last week."-- ABCs' Peter Jennings, November 14, 1994, explaining the Republican congressional victory. Looks like the Associated Press has had its Peter Jennings temper-tantrum moment. AP's explanation, as per the headline it chose for its story, of the overwhelming, 30-point margin by which Colorado voters rejected a tax-raising referendum? Coloradans were in a "sour mood." More after the jump.

RUSH: George Bush yesterday, the 9/11 memorials. You know, a friend of mine observed this. What did Obama do? Obama went to a soup kitchen, 9/11, a day of service, as though we've got something to apologize for, for what happened on 9/11. A friend of mine observes Obama and Bloomberg both acted like it was a natural disaster. Bush, George W. Bush, who, by the way, stands tall in retrospect. Ten years, not one attack. Great statesmanship. If somebody told me today they wanted to put Bush's face on Mount Rushmore, I'd be in there supporting it. I saw...

ABC News has learned that Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. On Friday, Holbrooke was rushed to the hospital with a torn aorta. He went through more than 20 hours of surgery. Earlier this evening, speaking at the US State Department, President Obama sang Holbrooke's praises and called him "a tough son of a gun." Holbrooke, 69, was a former ambassador to the United Nations and served as chief negotiator at the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote a nice story about Holbrooke last year,...

The voters had a temper tantrum last week . . . Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old. -- Peter Jennings, November 14, 2004, commenting on the Republican landslide. [C]onservatives . . . can choose to stand aside from history while having a temper tantrum. But they should consider that the American people might then choose not to invite them back into a position of responsibility for quite a while to come. -- William Kristol, February 4, 2008, on conservative aversion to McCain. It's one thing to be bawled...

Boston Globe - CONCORD, N.H.: A former national pollster argues in his new book that Al Gore really won the 2000 presidential election, but premature calls by the media for George Bush took Gore's victory away. David Moore's book, "How to Steal an Election," argues Al Gore rightfully won the presidency. Moore, a former University of New Hampshire professor, said he knows his premise is a "hard sell" and insists the book is not partisan. His former bosses -- the Gallup Poll -- disagreed and fired him after he told them about the book last spring, he said. Gallup General...

WASHINGTON (AP) - An American accused in court papers of having ties to Osama bin Laden is now working for the Iraqi government's Foreign Ministry, U.S. officials and a former CIA counterterrorism chief say. Iraqi-born Tarik A. Hamdi was the ``American contact'' for one of bin Laden's front organizations and gave a satellite telephone battery to a bin Laden aide in Afghanistan for a phone used by the terrorist leader, according to an affidavit from Customs Agent David Kane.The affidavit was unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., along with a federal indictment charging Hamdi with lying...

Marking the one-year anniversary of longtime smoker Peter Jennings’ death from lung cancer, ABC’s Dr. Timothy Johnson wrote up a prescription as outdated and ineffective as bleeding a patient: growing government. “At the government level there are three proven techniques. One is to raise prices by increasing taxes, the second is to limit access by minors, and the third is to conduct mass media campaigns,” Johnson said on the August 7 “World News with Charles Gibson.” Although ABC's medical editor went on to slam government for having “dropped the ball” on his prescription, anchor Charles Gibson didn’t include anyone with...

Simple Bush hatred? Certainly it is an element. An East Coast, effete liberalism that considers legal governmental oversight as dangerous, and maybe more so than al Qaeda? Absolutely. Latent, reflexive anti-Americanism? Yes. But at root, it is a hubris that somehow, the job of the press to report information is on an equal footing with the obligation of government to protect us from our enemies. Which brings me to a telling installment of the great PBS series, Ethics in America, as recounted by Jack Dunphy: Nowhere was this mindset more vividly displayed than in a 1987 installment of the series...

The word went out on August 8th that Peter Jennings, an icon of American mainstream media, had died at the age of 67. In this day and age, 67 is well below the average life span in America, and it is unfortunate that the ABC News anchor died prematurely due to lung cancer. Often when someone dies, the initial commentary is rather flattering, as people with the smallest amount of good taste will not speak ill of the dead, especially before they’ve been put in the ground. There was plenty of news coverage of Jennings death, and there were a...

The City of New York will pay tribute to Peter Jennings today when the street where ABC News headquarters is located is renamed in his honor. It is a permanent geographical memorial to the man who left such an indelible mark on the landscape of American journalism. West 66th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue in New York City's Upper West Side will be dubbed "Peter Jennings Way." The Jennings family, ABC News President David Westin, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and many of Jennings' former colleagues will attend the naming ceremony. Jennings lived close to his office...

February 17, 2006 -- The Upper West Side street on which ABC News' headquarters is located is getting a second name — in honor of the late Peter Jennings. West 66th between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue will be Peter Jennings Way as of next Tuesday. Jennings, 67, died in August, just four months after disclosing that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He anchored "World News Tonight" for 22 years and, with Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather, was considered one of the Big Three evening-news anchors. Brokaw retired from "NBC Nightly News" in 2004 and Rather from...

Peter Jennings left a fortune worth more than $50 million to his wife and two children, according to the ABC News anchor's will, the Daily News has learned. Jennings, 67, left the bulk of his estate in trust for his two children, Elizabeth, 25, and Christopher, 23, from his marriage to writer Kati Marton, according to the will, filed Wednesday in Manhattan Surrogate's Court. He left his Central Park West apartment to his widow, Kayce Freed, whom he wed in 1997, as well as a portion of his estate, as laid out in a prenuptial agreement the couple signed before...